Wilmington and Beaches Convention & Visitors Bureau

What Wilmington and Beaches Convention & Visitors Bureau does

Wilmington and Beaches Convention & Visitors Bureau is a quasi-governmental destination marketing organization (DMO) founded in 2004 and headquartered at 929 N. Front Street, Suite 410, in Wilmington, North Carolina. The CVB promotes tourism to Wilmington and its three island beaches — Carolina Beach, Kure Beach, and Wrightsville Beach — and is primarily funded through local hotel occupancy taxes and tourism-related fees rather than direct service revenue. It is not a venture-backed or publicly traded entity; it operates under public oversight as the region's marketing authority.

The CVB distributes destination information and marketing content through a connected set of channels: the Visit Wilmington & Beaches website (wilmingtonandbeaches.com), the Mobile Trip Guide mobile application, an annual printed and digital Visitor Guide, and an eNews email newsletter. Supporting tools include the Wilmington Ale Trail interactive map (31 breweries and bottle shops) and webcams across the four destinations. Content emphasizes multi-channel marketing — website, blog, social media (#WilmingtonNC), video, email, and industry events — to reach leisure tourists, meeting and convention planners, wedding parties, sports event organizers, and film and television productions.

The organization serves five primary customer segments: leisure tourists (families and individuals planning coastal vacations), meeting and convention planners sourcing venues, wedding parties, sports event organizers, and film and television productions leveraging the destination's "Wilmywood" heritage. Pricing to visitors is effectively free (information resources); revenue flows from occupancy tax assessments and member business participation. Recognition includes USA Today Top 5 Tour, TripAdvisor Top 10 U.S. Tour, CraftBeer.com designation as one of America's Beeriest Beach Towns, and a 2024 U.S. Government designation as the nation's first WWII Heritage City.

Name

Wilmington and Beaches Convention & Visitors Bureau

Legal name

Wilmington and Beaches Convention & Visitors Bureau

Website

https://wilmingtonandbeaches.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2004

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Wilmington and Beaches Convention & Visitors Bureau is a quasi-governmental destination marketing organization that promotes tourism to Wilmington, North Carolina, and its three island beaches. Funded through local occupancy taxes, it serves leisure tourists, meeting and convention planners, wedding parties, sports event organizers, and film productions.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Wilmington

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B and B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Operations, Technology or R&D, Others

Revenue model

1. Tourism Promotion and Marketing Services: As a Convention & Visitors Bureau, the organization is primarily funded through local tourism taxes (occupancy taxes) and membership fees from local tourism-related businesses. Revenue supports marketing the destination to visitors, meeting planners, and event organizers.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels5 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Wilmington and Beaches Convention & Visitors Bureau is a destination marketing organization that promotes Wilmington, NC and its three island beaches (Carolina Beach, Kure Beach, Wrightsville Beach) to leisure travelers, meeting planners, wedding parties, and sports event organizers. It provides visitor information, event calendars, attraction directories, accommodation listings, and trip planning resources through its website, mobile app, printed visitor guide, and email newsletter. The organization also facilitates meetings, conventions, group/wedding bookings, and sports event planning for the destination.

Product overview

Wilmington and Beaches CVB operates as a destination marketing organization offering a unified tourism platform consisting of its primary website (Visit Wilmington & Beaches), a Mobile Trip Guide application, an annual Visitor Guide publication, and an email newsletter service (eNews). These interconnected services work together to provide comprehensive vacation planning resources for visitors exploring Wilmington, NC and its three island beaches.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Visit Wilmington & Beaches Website The official vacation guide website promoting Wilmington, NC and its three island beaches (Carolina Beach, Kure Beach, Wrightsville Beach) as a tourist destination, featuring event calendars, trip planning tools, and local business directories.
• Mobile Trip Guide A mobile trip planning application that allows travelers to explore events, attractions, places to stay, and create itineraries on-the-go, accessible via smartphone.
• 2026 Visitor Guide Annual printed and digital visitor guide featuring comprehensive travel information about Wilmington and its beaches, available for viewing online or by mail request.
• eNews Email Newsletter Email newsletter service delivering trip ideas, events, and latest news about Wilmington and the island beaches directly to subscribers' phones and inboxes.

Quantifiable outcome

• 31 breweries and bottle shops along the Wilmington Ale Trail for craft beer enthusiasts

Named customers4 records

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles5 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature2 records

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• Public and Private Sector Collaboration (General)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 16 March 2026The CVB participates in collaboration between public and private sectors to adapt to evolving visitor preferences and technological advances. The North Carolina Tourism Conference 2026 gathered industry leaders, tourism officials, and marketing experts to discuss future travel promotion, destination development, and innovation in US tourism.

Scale indicators5 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Visit Outer Banks: Outer Banks Visitors Bureau is the most direct North Carolina coastal peer — beach destination DMO with similar product mix (multiple island communities, film/production ties via the Lost Colony and major releases), and a comparable occupancy-tax funding model.
• Visit Raleigh: Greater Raleigh CVB serving a similarly sized North Carolina metro; comparable DMO structure, target segments (conventions, sports, leisure), and reliance on hotel occupancy tax funding.
• Visit Charlotte: North Carolina CVB/DMO operating under the same quasi-governmental occupancy-tax-funded model for the Charlotte metro; directly comparable in mandate (convention sales + leisure marketing), governance structure, and Simpleview-style DMO technology stack.
• Explore Charleston: Charleston Area CVB is the closest peer by demand mix — coastal Southeast destination combining historic district, beaches, culinary/brewery scene, and film/production heritage (similar 'Hollywood of the South' reputation); competes for the same group and leisure travel.
• Visit Savannah: Visit Savannah is a comparable coastal Southeast DMO with overlapping product (historic district, film production ties via Forrest Gump and the growing Georgia film industry, culinary scene) and similar group/leisure segmentation.
• Visit Asheville: Explore Asheville CVB is a North Carolina peer DMO with a comparable occupancy-tax-funded structure; different mountain product but same leisure/group marketing playbook and technology vendor stack.
• Destination DC: Destination DC is a larger but structurally identical urban DMO — occupancy-tax funded, convention-sales plus leisure-marketing mandate, multi-channel digital platform, and similar group/sports/event segment focus.
• Visit Durham: Discover Durham is a North Carolina DMO peer of similar size and operating model, targeting overlapping leisure, sports, and convention segments from the same regional drive market.
• Visit Myrtle Beach: Myrtle Beach Area CVB is a direct peer for the beach and group-event segments, operating at a larger scale in the same Southeast coastal corridor with similar occupancy-tax funding and DMO marketing mandate.

Others

• Simpleview: Simpleview is the dominant DMO technology vendor whose CMS, CRM, and mobile-app platform underpins Wilmington and Beaches CVB (and most US CVBs); an adjacent ecosystem enabler rather than a competitor.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Facebookfacebook.com/VisitWilmingtonNC
• Instagraminstagram.com/visit_wilmington_nc
• Xx.com/WilmingtoNCoast
• YouTubeyoutube.com/VisitWilmingtonNC

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Wilmington and Beaches Convention & Visitors Bureau